Tag Archives: Peace

“And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

I think I’ve finally figured out a good way to describe what exactly it is that I’m looking for out of life. It comes down to one word: “profundity”. I want to be moved. I want nature and life to make me cry. I want to be able to cry in front of someone while looking at something beautiful, and be able to say to them “That’s beautiful.”

I’ve always had this sense, for many years, that something was missing in my life. I couldn’t figure out what it was. I think part of the problem is being surrounded by the perspective of the “average” person: dull, and dumb. Not much to look forward to but the next race or ball game (I’m not talking about family, but just being around people in public, overhearing conversations constantly, coworkers, etc.). That’s not what life is about to me. I think that’s why I’ve been going on these solo drives lately. One, just for new environments. But, arguably even more so, because of self-reflection.

I feel like I’ve been beaten down over the years with constant derision of being an “overthinker“. No one could possibly understand the enjoyment that I get from contemplation. I haven’t known how to speak out against it. Now that I’m older, with more responsibility and freedom, I find myself asking: What do I want my perspective to be? What do I want to think about? Where do I want my mind to be? That’s a very deep question. Going through the motions gets you through the day. But is that all my life is? “Getting through the day”? What’s the point in that? You’re telling me that God created our entire universe, the Earth, and US, for Christ’s sake, just for us to “get through the day”? What kind of ultimate purpose is THAT? A fucking pathetic one.

No, there’s something missing in my life, for sure. So much talk revolves around bills and jobs. Not only politically, but just “small talk”. To be fair, I guess when it occupies as much time and energy as it does, that is inevitable. But am I to take certain inevitabilities as the purpose of my life? If I were to get cancer tomorrow, would I treat that cancer as the purpose of my life? Would I talk about it constantly, and think of nothing else but it? Or would I look for profundity in other things? I think the answer is the latter.

I’m tired of listening to well-meaninged people warning about a “life wasted”. I want to be able to say why I disagree with them. In order to do that, I need to use words. I need to “overthink” about words. I’m tired of playing dumb just to keep some sense of “social peace”. Your inferiority complex shouldn’t be my problem. There’s too much profundity to be concerned with some jackass that feels insecure because your vocabulary is deeper than his.

And that should go for myself as well. I shouldn’t dismiss someone just because they speak better than me. Just learn how to speak better, you fucking retard. Learn new words. Become a better listener. It’s not one of the Ten Commandments: just an improvable life skill.

The ultimate problem is that I’m not allowing myself to get lost in my own head enough. I listen to others a lot so that I can learn things for myself. But speaking up for myself is difficult many times. I don’t really allow myself, often enough, to reflect, and contemplate. This makes those times when I do feel like doing those things all the more special. There’s other factors mentally blocking me from fully dedicating myself to creating things. I’ll have to continue to write about those later, even though I’m sure I’ve already touched on them somewhere.

My head is too full of the words of others instead of what feels like my own independent thoughts. Social anxiety is one reason why I can’t tune others out. The other is that responsibility scares me. The unknown future is scary for all of us often. So we focus on our immediate day, where more things are under our control. But I’ve encountered so many people that say “Where in the hell did my life go?” that it scares me, so I try to think more about the future. And I believe that my future would be better if I allowed myself to get more lost inside of my own head, instead of replaying the words of others in my head constantly and doubting my every desire and decision. That ain’t working anymore. I can’t write like that. Writing requires independent thoughts. I love writing. I need independent thoughts. I need MY words. I don’t want my words to just be “Here’s what someone else told me one time.” What’s MY analysis?

But it’s hard to allow myself to get lost in my head. As I’ve said, it’s just scary to be alone inside of your own head. All of your mistakes come at once. All of your uncertainties. Your worst fears. They come storming at you. It’s easier to close the door of your independent mind and let someone else distract you from yourself. Perhaps some music would help?

Going out on a limb like this, of course, poses its own problems. What if I’m wrong? That’s humiliating. Will I just be able to say “I messed up?” Once again, I think that’s, mainly, just a skill that needs to be learned. It’s one thing to realize the power of humility when you feel like you aren’t making a mistake. It’s another when you realize you have.

Another problem is experience. EVERYTHING is “experience”. But the question should be: what kind of experience? I need more experience with linguisticators. I want to figure out why they burn me out so much. I understand that reading, and listening to good speakers, would help me with my own desire to communicate. But I’m always hesitant to do so. Why? Well, for one, language is separate from the subject. I like focusing on a couple of subjects at a time. But then, I get burned out. So in order to keep reading, and not feeling burnt out on the subject, I’d have to read about another subject. But which one? That’s the problem. Reading something and realizing that I don’t enjoy it. Or just getting tired of it, like eating the same food everyday, except with a book. I need to approach reading differently. Instead of focusing on the subject, I need to focus on the languageused. That’s not going to be easy. I’m still going to read subjects that I enjoy, of course. But I also need to be able to analyze the use of language separately from the content of the work. Ok, this work is boring me. But is it written well? If so, why? And then, try to learn how to use language better for myself. Once again, this is just a skill that needs to be learned.

Ultimately, the solution will probably come down to reading writers better than I (shouldn’t be too hard to find). I need to have a certain mindset to be open enough to understand what it is exactly that makes their writing better than mine, and how to use that for myself. I guess the question becomes: how much do I want to do that, exactly? I don’t know how much of it will satisfy me yet. I don’t even know how to approach it, really. I anticipate that if I took the advice of someone else that I’d burn out quickly and then get tired of learning how to get better altogether. I think this is a slow, natural, lifetime process that I can’t fully explain yet. It could be the case that I’m lying to myself, and all of this is for naught. But I think it is the only thing that satisfies my heart, and that matters to me (of course). The challenge is being able to explain WHY I believe that it matters.

Another reason that I find language so difficult is that I’ve always associated good speakers with charlatans. It’s easy to tell if an idiot is “good” or “evil“. It’s much harder when someone speaks well. I was so afraid of being evil (thanks, free will baptism) that I just avoided language like the plague. I realize now how stupid that was. But now begins the task of fixing it. And that’s going to be hard, considering how far behind I am because of my old way of thinking. You may say “You write well now,” but you have no idea how good it can become. I do.

For better or worse, ethics consume most of my thoughts. I think this is an evident combination of genes and environment. Certainly, my religious upbringing and journey has a lot to do with why thoughts of ethics almost consume me. But I know there’s definitely a major genetic component as well. Hypocrisy, especially if I do something “evil”, scares me. I just don’t want to do it. I, like everyone else, am torn between doing good and evil. I have, and will, do both throughout my life. And that bothers the fuck out of me. I guess one might say “The fact that it bothers you proves that you’re a good person.” But I will take no solace in that. The thought of being a hypocrite bothers me. Especially the thought of being a hypocrite on a very famous scale (and I desire “fame” only as a measure of success that I wish to have, so that I don’t get stuck in a life that I resent everyday. Maybe one day I’ll just be “content” like everyone else, but I have goals, and I want them. And that’s all I care about. I know that it takes that type of attitude to succeed, so now, all I need is that success, so that I can hand you the check and say “I told you so.” And if it doesn’t work, who cares? I’ll join you at the factory line and you can tell me about all of the time I’ve wasted, whereas I can say “At least I tried” and make fun of you for NOT trying). I find enjoyment in being critical, and that obviously puts a lot of pressure on me. “Just stop being so critical,” you might say. Criticism, especially humorous criticism, is too much fucking fun. I think it’s worth the anxiety of making a mistake. And, once again, I think that’s another reason why humility is a skill that I desperately need to develop.

And that never-ending war of trying to figure out how to “handle” other people. In a way where the advice of others doesn’t deafen my own independent thoughts. Trying to figure out truth is a lifelong battle: as is dealing with the evil of others. It will continue on forever, as you continue to get older, and, eventually, die. We do good, we do evil, then we think about and talk about the evil of others. Then, we listen to others talk about the evil of still yet others. I’m so fucking exhausted with it all. I want to take part in it, but I’m also fucking sick of it. “Hypocrisy”, I guess you’d say. And here comes the advice. And here’s where Cody has to say “Ignore it, because you want to.” And here’s where Cody hears others complaining that he said he’s going to ignore them. And here’s where Cody needs to tell himself “Just continue ignoring them.” And here’s where Cody hears them saying that “Yes, you need to ignore them.” And here’s where Cody realizes they are “them” so he shouldn’t listen to them. And on, and on, and fucking on. “Just stop”- I can’t- “You think too much”-no I don’t shut up haven’t you read fucking anything I’ve written up to this point? Maybe you realize the problem now.

I can’t wait to just become an old grouch. That’s what my heart ultimately longs for. It flies in the face of all “advice” you’ll hear. But who gives a shit. I’m a grumpy old grouch at heart, goddammit, and that’s what I want to be. So it’s going to fucking stay that way. Get out.

You can’t appreciate profundity when a bunch of stupid blabbermouths don’t see it and won’t shut the fuck up about what they do see.

…Stuff like this makes me wish that either I was older or that I end up dying younger. I can’t take 80 years of thinking like this, and I refuse to think like everyone else. I’m hopeful that this will change as time goes by. But, of course, I want it NOW. I already feel about 90. If I ever do make it to 90, I can’t imagine how I’d feel. That’s scary. Maybe I don’t want to make it to 90. But things do change…

Communication, like everything else, is hard. Regardless of what “natural” abilities you may have, everything gets hard at some point. There’s a reason why talented, say, basketball players practice. Michael Jordan has always been, and will always be, a better basketball player than me. And most. So why did he practice? Well……….what ELSE was he going to do? THAT was a question that he had to ask himself. And he ANSWERED it himself. That’s what I need to do. It doesn’t matter that I’ll (probably) never become the “Michael Jordan” of writing. That is so far removed from the point that that thought shouldn’t have even entered your head. The point is what do I want my writing and thoughts to be, and what do I want to do with them?

And that produces a fine line. Writing involves organization, knowing when to lengthen a piece, and knowing when to cut one off. My default position has just been to cut everything off short (because it’s easier). But something has been missing. I knew this day would come eventually, so I have never stressed about today not being around yesterday. But the day has come where I’m no longer satisfied with cutting things off prematurely. I’ve said stuff like this a million times, but it continues to be true. The process of writing is constant. I’ll probably say, throughout my entire life, that “I need to learn how to edit.” It doesn’t matter how much better I get from one year to the next, I anticipate that I’ll still say “I need to learn how to edit.” Why? Well, this is where the “Michael Jordan” analogy comes into play. What in the fuck ELSE am I going to do with my writing? If I don’t do that, but I want to write, the writing is just going to be “WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD WORD”. What’s the point in reading that? There IS none. Michael Jordan won a championship and an MVP one year. Why did he play the next year? It’s all about an attitude, and what one wants to do. I don’t care if I never win a writing MVP, or whatever. I don’t care if I’m not ranked among the 100,000 best writers ever. The point is that I want to write, and what attitude am I going to have while I do so? I pity those that don’t understand what I’m talking about. They’re kind of idiots.

I hope I don’t burn out too quickly. This has been a lifetime coming, but, ultimately, I think everything is. Everything has been leading up to everything. That’s unavoidable. But being able to explain that in certain ways is a skill that I wish to develop. One of the skills that I wish to develop.

I also need to work on the fact that even if someone’s advice doesn’t help me, at least they want to. I can ignore it, but at least I can say “Well, they’re trying to help, even if they aren’t.” At least give them that credit. And then, get back to my alone time as quickly as possible. I’m sure they’ll understand. At least, if I’ve explained myself well enough, they will. I think my main frustration with advice is that I haven’t been able to effectively speak for myself. That’s a pattern that I continue to notice. I’ve never been happy with my ability to speak for myself, and it’s something I’ve worked on for many, many years. And I have a long fucking way to go. It’s all a complicated weave that I have in my head that I want to be able to elaborate. And it’s exasperating. And it just keeps building more and more and more. It’s hard to handle, but this is the best time in my life to handle it financially. I can’t afford to waste this opportunity. I want all of my ideas to come fast, and just get them all done as rapidly as possible. But they need to mature to maintain a quality that I’m happy with. It’s not about writing a bestseller, it’s just about writing good stuff, goddammit. My heart has always hurt when inspiration has hit me and I couldn’t write because I was at work, or had to go to school the next day. Staying up for hours later than I should just because “It hit me.” Feeling frustrated because I had other responsibilities that kept me from writing. So much of that has changed. This is the time that I’ve been desperate for my whole life. SO WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD I EVER STRUGGLE TO WRITE?????????? Write NOW, dammit!!! In truth, there’s still stuff to figure out, as there always has been. But this is, more than likely, the best time I will EVER HAVE to create. EVER. I’ll have more free time now than I’ve ever had. That pressure is terrifying. But if I get in too much of a hurry, the work sucks. And I need to absorb more before I can regurgitate more. I haven’t been happy with much of my writing for a long time now, and it’s mainly because I just didn’t have enough within me to get it done the way I wanted to get done. There’s too much for me to elaborate on here, but I want to do it eventually. All of my work is a tangled weave of my life. It all connects, in the grand scheme of things. I’m a “mad scientist”. It’s a delicate balance. I guess I’ll just have to hope that I don’t see it all as a mistake down the road, and figure out exactly what I’m going to do today, and how.

Technical ability to improve quality (of things like video) is a skill I need to learn without burning myself out trying to do so. Software, camera work, lighting. No, I don’t need to go to school for it. I’ll experiment with it myself eventually. But I need a better outlook of completing good work. A – you guessed it – philosophical approach to quality and effort. I know that probably sounds weird to you. But I want to be able to explain what I mean eventually. I want to be able to explain everything. How I write, etc.

I need to hurry up and get better so I can churn out more stuff, and keep improving it. The gaps in time between my writings are far too fucking long for my taste. But I can’t just type “BLAH BLAH BLAH” and say I’ve written something. It just takes a lot of time. Everything does. And then, I’ll get old and say “Holy fuck. Where did the time go?”

I still have a lot of things that I want to say about the past. About writing. I want to be able to explain what is going on inside of my head. If that doesn’t interest you, that’s fine. If it enrages you, I find that humorous. If it inspires you, that’s terrifying. But the ultimate point is that I want to be lost inside of my own head to find some peace in this world. That’s mainly what I care about at the moment. That, and just learning how to do everything better, such as my attitude and “dealing with” other people. And editing, and organizing, etc.

So that’s what I’m working on, I guess. Lmfao (When to work? When to break? When to write? When to listen to music? Who to listen to? Who to ignore? WHEN WHEN WHEN? It never ends).

The hardest part about all of this is having known, for a long time, that all of this was going to happen (or at least significant parts of it), but having it not happen. Realizing “Yep, this is definitely a waiting game.” As my favorite childhood musician once said, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

I can’t recommend enough that people study economics. It has taken over my life, for the better. It is the ultimate red pill. Governments make sense when you study economics (if you’re studying the right places). It makes revolutions all the more understandable, and is truly frightening in making you realize that, very likely, you may be involved in a revolutionary war in your life time, or a political prisoner, or subjected to the whims of your “rulers”, whatever they may be. “Constitutional protections” are flimsy when the rulers just……….you know, ignore them. The ultimate answer is an education. That is truly profound. The battle between good and evil never ultimately ceases. We just, thankfully, get some breaks from it every now and then. Peace, of course, is preferable. But smart people know that evil people won’t hesitate to use evil to achieve their means. It is crucial that people be willing to accept their natural right to defend themselves.

Many Americans have a “Revere” spirit. We still remember why America became a nation. And at least some of us still understand that this is always relevant. “Revolution” is not simply “historical”. It is always an option. Many Americans understand this, but sadly, more and more refuse to accept this truth. More and more, people become less skeptical of “leaders”. They refuse to believe that America could ever become, say, a North Korea. That type of attitude whittles away the revolutionary spirit that founded the nation. It is a very scary trend. The reason economics is so crucial to this cause is because people will ask, for example, what happened in 2008? Why did I lose everything? They look for answers. Their political leaders always offer them the solutions. And many of them listen, and believe the leaders. Even the most elementary glance at history shows the ultimate “conclusion” of government control. Americans are skeptical of this. “Wait a minute: weren’t we founded on a rebellion against government? Wasn’t that what the Enlightenment was all about? Something fishy is going on here. What am I missing?” The answer is economics.

……….Of course, educating oneself in other areas would help as well. I’m getting around to educating myself on world history. Currently, I’m too involved with economics to do both. You have to have a structure when learning. That, really, comes down to the individual student.

Despite the fact that, as a writer, I wish that I spent most of my “writing” time actually physically writing, the truth is that, as I am painfully learning, that a large percentage of a writer’s time is sitting in silence, thinking. In some ways, this has always made me feel very uncomfortable. Uneasy. Although we all spend all of our time thinking about something, the truth is that, of course, there is clearly a difference when it comes to writing. Thinking about what I am going to eat for the day doesn’t take as much “effort” as thinking about a piece of fiction or non-fiction. Thank God, for if it did, I would probably starve to death.

I don’t have a lot of patience. I have a sense of urgency to always be working on something. If I’m going to succeed, I need to work now. In my head, I know that thinking about my work is a large part of my work, an essential part, but I don’t feel productive when I just sit and think. I can tell that my writing has suffered as a result. Too often, particularly with fiction (as coherency in non-fiction is easier for me), I write something just to get something down; finished. Even if it doesn’t make any sense.

As I sit here, I realize that anxiety has a lot to do with my disdain for just “sitting and thinking”, even though “sitting and thinking” is extremely necessary for writing. I love writing, perhaps more than anything in the world (I try to refrain from speaking in absolutes regarding my feelings if only because I don’t want to delve into my feelings so deeply as to give an absolute answer to someone else. Why should it matter to me that I let someone know my absolute feelings about certain things, such as whether there’s anything I love more than writing? I don’t really think that question is important enough to answer, so I answer rather ambiguously). I write the “easy” stuff to keep me from sitting and thinking too long. There is a lack of confidence on my part to speak out honestly. I’ve worked hard at changing this for the past several years, but there has been a reluctance on my part for a lot of my life to speak honestly. People think you’re weird when you speak out. Stupid. Sometimes, it’s more peaceful to just keep your mouth shut, even if the internal turmoil is great.

Thankfully, due to what I can only describe as brain chemistry, the anxieties of social judgment are fading. I think it will be the greatest thing to happen to me when it feels as if it has “completed”. Is “over”. I am confident and hopeful that that day will occur in full in the future. Peace, Heaven, and tranquility on Earth. I have practiced “speaking out” for several years now. Depending on whatI’m writing, this is easy (the obviously extreme stuff, like very offensive jokes, violent fictional characters, etc. are easy). A lot of of more honest personal feelings are quite easy. But there’s still an anxiety to write at the detriment of sitting and thinking, so that the writing suffers as a result. The anxiety is often about “right and wrong”. Every thought has had to be measured against “right and wrong”. “Right and wrong” become your new thoughts. Everything is either right or wrong. If you aren’t thinking about right and wrong, then you are wrong. Is that fictional story idea you have right or wrong? Right or wrong, right or wrong, right or wrong. It pains me to remember this fact; or, rather, to realize it for the first time. Or, rather still, realizing for the first time that this is a problem. A huge fucking problem. Gargantuan. Destructive. Terrible. Never being able to admit that you fucking hate that way of thinking, but telling yourself you loved it, as if trying to keep up a facade to God, that you loved His “holy blessing” (as, clearly, choosing “right” from “wrong” was a blessing). A part of me hopes that I don’t piss any of you, the readers, off. But a part of me hopes I do. Some of you need to be pissed off, because this conservative ideology is fucking disgusting. Horrible, evil, sadistic trash. Fuck it.

The weird thing is that I haven’t thought about this stuff for years. It becomes a way of life, and you can’t see yourself from an outsider’s perspective any longer. You can’t realize there’s actually a problem. It was never introduced as a problem. It was introduced as Christianity. What’s wrong with Christianity? But it’s truly a problem. The ideas are a problem. Right and wrong, right and wrong. It’s a big fucking problem. It destroys you. Destroys peace on Earth, and then laments at the sins of others. How fucking exhausting it is. I hate it, and I wish I could single-handedly destroy it. But I can only write about my past experiences with it.

Throughout my young years, “sitting and thinking” has led to me envisioning Hellfire engulfing my bed. “Sitting and thinking”, at around eight or nine years old, led me to think about sex, and then led me to think about how bad it was to think about sex. It made me hate women. I hate admitting that, because I know how people will react to that. But it’s true. Almost all of the problems that I have with my emotions about the opposite sex stem from conservative Christianity (it’s not really “Christianity”, but I’m going to call it that simply for simplicity’s sake). This current culture is very progressive. I know what people will say as a result of what I’ve just said about women. Hell, I know it doesn’t matter what you say, people will always be outraged by it. But that has always bothered me. I’m not a bad person. I’m not a bad guy. But I’ve always felt like people perceive me to be that way, and that has always bugged me. I have finally decided to play it up, and just say “You know what, if people are going to think that anyway, I’m going to give them a reason to do so.” And so, I continue to have fun with people’s fears. I’ve tried writing honestly about these things in the past, but I didn’t have the patience and introspection to sit and think, which is what I’m attempting to do with this piece. I can’t write until I understand myself. Introspection always comes first. Introspective writing must come before any other type of writing for me, regardless of how long it fucking takes to get everything done.

It’s no wonder why I don’t like “sitting and thinking”. Honesty is scary. Tough. Social criticism is hard. “What if? What if I ama bad person? Everyone says I am. God thinks I am, and He knows eeeeeeeverything. And He’s never wrong. If I’m evil, and murder is evil, does that mean I’m capable of murder? What if I’m a liar? What if I’m evil? Just run away. Get away from it quick. Do anything else but get lost in thought. You’re going down the road of suffering and fear. Don’t think deeply. Run away. Run away.” And that’s exactly what I’ve done all this time. But I need to start thinking deeply again if I’m going to be a writer. And this means coming face-to-face with Hell again. It’s different this time, as instead of actually being in it, I’m an observer, while Hell sits behind the thick glass of God’s intervening grace. But still, I can see it. I can remember it. And it is still terrifying. A breeze compared to what it used to be, however.

It isn’t just religion that has hindered my “sitting and thinking”. I believe I have a natural disposition that tends toward anxiety. External stimuli have always affected me more than people I’ve been around. Bright lights, loud noises, etc. Of course, I’ve had to learn to accept them and ignore them. But I think it’s harder for me than a lot of people. Things have always deeply affected me. I’ll give a particularly embarrassing example of this. Once, when I was a child, taking a bath, I noticed what I thought was a cut on myself. I can’t remember if it was on my arm or leg. It didn’t actually hurt, but because I thought it was a cut, and because I thought it was going to hurt or sting, or thought it should hurt or sting because I was in the tub, I started screaming and crying. Bathwater in a cut? That has to be bad, right? So I cried and screamed. My father, bless his heart, came running in: “What’s the matter?! What’s the matter?!” I held up the “cut”. And he pulled the red string off of my arm.

Mental illness? Who knows. Clearly, insane. But is it normal? Don’t kids just do things like that from time to time? Isn’t that part of how we learn? Maybe some kids overestimate danger, some underestimate it. As embarrassing as that story was, it was real. And it was me. I’ve always been an emotionally sensitive person, and, for once, I accept that fact and am willing to freely admit it, accepting that I will be ridiculed for it (and the ridicule isn’t even completely unjustified, which is the worst part about it).

For whatever reason, anxiety has always been a part of my life. My “nature”? Environment? Genes? I just know that it has always been there. It has changed, in form and scope, but it has always been there. Fear has hindered me. Thanks, in part, to having mainly only dumb peers in my youth, I have often feared my own sanity. Saying smart things around dumb people with no other frame of reference, or check-and-balance system to bounce your ideas off of (along with the sharp judgment of the idiot your talking to), especially when you are a “highly-sensitive person”, can only make you feel stupid. Despite the fact that I’ve pretty much always known I was smart, I’ve felt stupid. I’m not even talking about times where I actually did something stupid. I’ve just always had this fear that what I say doesn’t make any sense. That I only think I’m smart, when I’m really not. This scares me as a writer. My biggest fear is that I become hugely, emotionally invested in a piece, thinking it is perfect, and, objectively, that it doesn’t make a lick of sense. That scares me. And it keeps me from sitting in silence, really thinking about any particular piece. I just write frantically in an attempt to “complete” something, even if it isn’t good. The strange irony, of course, is that my fears have actually come to life because of it. The writing actually is bad because I’m afraid of sitting and thinking about it to make it better for fear that it might actually be bad. The thought of being a bad writer angers me and scares me more than anything about this craft. It isn’t the thought of never making a living off of the writing (although that does produce its own fear). It is that I write away, feeling good, feeling like the piece is good, but it is actually fucking trash. I don’t think, at least at the current time, that my heart could take that level of dejection, especially considering the fact that I just ate a couple of slices of pizza before writing this.

You start to believe that you are what people tell you that you are, for better or worse, when you are a child. I’ve written about intelligence before, but I’ve always felt bad about being smart. But as a “young adult”, I’m very thankful that I am as smart as I am. It’s just a case now of developing more self-esteem, mental independence, and actually doing something with it, which I am trying to do. The more quiet and peaceful I feel, the more I feel a drill sergeant yelling in my face. Perhaps due to having a very chaotic, unfortunate upbringing. Clearly, experience has a lot to do with my conditioning in this regard. You can never get too happy or high without something really bad happening to you. At least, this was the case for me. My childhood was filled with tragedy. Like the childhood of so many others. It is very painful to think about when it seems as if the one who caused the pain is delusional, even though that individual had their own “Hell” growing up. Very tragic.

Tragedy motivates me more than any other emotion as a writer. It’s honestly no surprise to me now. It all makes sense, as long as I come to grips with it. As a kid, “positive thinking” didn’t help me. It didn’t matter how positive I tried to be, one particular individual in my family wasn’t coming home (at least not for very long). It didn’t matter how long I sat in the yard at night, by myself, waiting for this individual to come home, it never happened. Of course, I grew very bitter and depressed as a result. (Honestly, considering the way things were when this individual was at home, maybe it was best that this individual was gone). And this individual did not seem to acknowledge the problem for a very, very long time. I feel as if this individual greatly regrets their actions, which I’m very thankful for. They should. But tragedy moulded my mind at a very young age, and I’ve never looked back. I think I have avoided “sitting in silence” to keep this stuff from coming out, but now is as good of a time as any to write about it.

Clearly, a part of the reason I don’t sit in silence is the pain involved. If you aren’t careful, you’ll cry. And I absolutely fucking hate crying. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. Crying as a child gets you a slap in the face around these parts. Parenting in this part of the world is absolutely cringeworthy and disgusting. Dark comedy became my way of getting out of the funk. Making jokes about really horrible stuff made me happy. I wasn’t taking pleasure in the pain or misfortune of others, but making a shocking joke for the sake of catching people off guard so that they couldn’t help but laugh. “Dark stuff” became my way of dealing with the poor parenting I received from one of my parents. And I grew to love it. Of course, it has always made me “weird” to people. People think you’re a little off. Strange. They worry about you. But when you’re laughing, you really don’t care as much. It truly is beautiful, and I desire to grow more into comedy, as it makes me very happy. I scare myself, because I compare myself to Robin Williams. Although I know comedy is a common device to deal with tragedy, every time I think of my own situation, where I have taught myself to deal with tragedy in a comedic way, I always think of Robin Williams, and I get scared. Is the comedy enough to outrun the demons? I often get scared that it isn’t. But my work makes me very happy, so I hang my hat on that fact, and I don’t draw probably unfair comparisons between Robin Williams and myself.

A large reason I don’t sit in silence and write is because it becomes much more personal when I do. The shocking humor is great, because it isn’t real. I present an image to people that isn’t me, so I don’t care how they react to it (of course I’d prefer they like it, but as long as they don’t kill me, I don’t really care how they react to it). But, as I’ve said, people in the past didn’t understand what I was saying. So few have. I’ve been told that I have delusions of grandeur simply for stating that fact. There is no escaping the idiots, no matter how hard you try. You just learn how to deal with them with age, sadly. You can never escape them. They will always make their presence known, and you just have to learn to ignore them the best you can. That’s very hard for me.

People hate you for expressing things honestly. They judge you, and other stuff. And, as I said, I have worked hard on not caring about this, but I still have a lot further to go. I have always worried about being a bad person. Being an evil person. Knowing that there was evil in the world from a young age, taking it to heart, and being told that I was also an evil person through religious messaging, I have always been in fear. Fear of myself. Fear that I was going to snap. But you can’t say that, because people don’t get it. “Why would you fear snapping if you aren’t actually going to snap?” Oh, if you only knew. If you only knew the heartache that religion caused me. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface in that regard, and I want to delay that for as long as possible, because that’s really going to hurt. It’s going to make me angry. And I want to be calm and peaceful. But I’ll have to deal with it eventually, and boy, is that going to be a bittersweet day…

I have always caved in to others. Always silenced, changed my ways to “keep the peace”. To keep the people at bay. Keep the teeth from gnashing. Even if I died a little on the inside. Despite the fact that I’ve been rebelling against this for years, the honesty is what is most difficult. It’s easy for me to write about serial killers, because I’m not a serial killer. But it’s hard for me to write about those things that are most deeply me. Like, for example, my intense fear of being a bad person. “Why are you afraid of being a bad person if you aren’t a bad person?” I fear it because, on some deep level, I understand just how “bad” bad can be. And I couldn’t live with myself if I was “bad”. I don’t want to be bad. I’m desperate to be good. I have always been told how bad I was. A sinner. Had a weird, twisted sense of humor that only a serial killer would have. A darkly fictitious mind that only a violent monster could have. And that has always eaten me alive. My own sense of morality has always eaten me alive. I have always compared my personal convictions to morals; to “good and bad”. Everything has led to the “bad”, but I don’t believe this any longer. I drove myself insane trying to prove my own “badness”. “Surely I must be evil. I must be corrupt. My sin. My perverted, fictitious mind.” I didn’t have a good frame of reference for what “good” and “bad” actually were. Sure, I knew what manners were. But what’s real good and what’s real evil? I didn’t know. I only had conservatism.

Everyone has felt “good” and everyone has felt “bad”. My own sins hurt me. Creep me out. Aside with youthful fights with my brother (“normality”), and some not-so-normal fisticuffs with my mother in my youth, I haven’t really ever been “violent” (the fisticuffs with my mother went as follows (You need to be called out on this): my mother, father, and I (and maybe my brother) were playing cards. Phase 10 or Uno, I can’t remember. My mom, smoking a cigarette, always used to (jokingly) insult my dad (I assume she was joking). I remember on one particular hand, he had a better hand than her, and she yelled “Fuck you!” in what I assumed to be a joking manner. I later said the same thing to her, and she slapped me in the face. Her hypocrisy infuriated me. The incident ended with us both on the ground, hands full of each other’s hair, yanking. She once (and still to this day, probably) lied about cutting my ear while cutting my hair. After years of being told that nothing she did was right, she couldn’t admit wrongdoing. It was too painful. I’m sure that’s what it was. I apologize if you read this, and don’t want this out, but I need this for my own sense of self-therapy (and you really don’t like to listen, anyway. We’ve tried to go down this road many times, and you just won’t)).

Come to think of it, I wonder if my parents played favorites. My brother was allowed to play football while I was not (in hindsight, I guess that does make sense. I, admittedly, have always been a delicate flower (I mean, just remember my fucking “red string” story)). My brother got to pick the color he wanted for his room, while I did not. That will never make sense to me. My brother got to select the color that he wanted his room painted, but I did not. I don’t understand that. I don’t know what I could be possibly missing from that story, but I’ll grant the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe I’m misremembering, and that he didn’t get to choose his own color. (Come to think of it, I’m starting to realize why I doubt myself so much. Why I’m so unconfident. Constantly second-guess myself. Why I feel so crazy. Sadly, it’s all coming together…). But I swear that he did. My room got painted, and his never did, which is weird. But still, I’ll never forget that. I remember him getting the color he wanted, while I did not. I don’t think I’ll ever know what actually happened in that case. She was not able to admit specific instances of her faults. Nowadays, she’ll say that she made mistakes. But how can I believe the crazy lady that wouldn’t admit them as they were occurring? I think that’s enough of that for now.

One time, my mother got pizza for my brother, me, and our two best friends at the time. If I recall correctly, half of us wanted pepperoni and half of us wanted cheese. My thought process was if you buy the pepperoni, those that want cheese can just pull the pepperoni off. But those that want pepperoni can’t add pepperoni to the cheese. I think that still logically makes sense. Sure, the pepperoni has cheese on it. So if you eat a plain cheese, you’re going to get the cheese you would get from the pepperoni pizza. But you’re not getting the pepperoni. The point was that if you bought a pepperoni pizza, half could pull their pepperonis off and have a “cheese” pizza. But she ordered the cheese pizza, I assume, just to get us to “shut up”. Her faulty logic infuriated me. I still think my instance makes more sense. I think that’s a common theme in my life: my way makes more sense, but I allow people to bulldoze me over just to “keep the peace”.

Why hold a grudge over pizza? It’s just like the cards. It’s fucking dumb. Adults are supposed to be smarter than that. Your parents are supposed to be smarter than that (or so I thought at the time). The lack of logic was unacceptable to me, and it still is. Sure, you can apologize. We can move on. But you were still wrong, and that is still unacceptable.

I’m not going any further into family history than that.

A lot of this is embarrassing, but honesty is therapeutic. Perhaps, if I ever become more “famous”, I will regret how candid I have been. But I value honesty, and I value expression. I value expressing negative emotion. I value making myself look like an idiot. Making myself look like a fool on purpose is also very therapeutic to me. There’s just something freeing about not taking myself very seriously. Laughing at myself. It makes me very happy. They say your joke isn’t very funny if you’re the only one laughing, but my response is: who fucking cares?

Sitting in silence hurts me. It really, really does. When bad things are happening to you, you don’t know when and how good things will happen. So often, when I have been depressed, I have wondered what was going to be my saving grace in that instance. I’ve never physically harmed myself, but I just sit in emotional pain, and think of things to relieve that pain. I don’t think I could ever act on them. Clearly, I’ve never been so unhappy that I’ve killed myself, as I’m alive right now, writing this. Despite how much I may think of death as a way to ease the pain, I don’t think it is in me to actually kill myself. In the past, I thought “I don’t know if I’m going to Heaven or Hell, so I might as well stay here because it might be worse when I die.” That is truly a hilarious thought to me. “I’m not going to kill myself because I might go to Hell.” You might think that is incredibly sad, but that is hilarious to me. I imagine a movie character, horrifically depressed, drunk, who has a line: “I’m not going to kill myself because I might go to Hell.” Depending on the context, that could be fucking hilarious.

I don’t talk about my history of depression very often, for obvious reasons. People feel compelled to “help” you. But I’m an introvert. I just want to be left alone. This isn’t something that I can’t fight off myself. I already have. I accept that I will have spells of depression from time to time. I think everyone does. I’m not actually going to kill myself, despite how bad I may feel in any one instance. And, especially over the past two years, I’ve learned that suicidal thoughts actually don’t help. In some ways, suicidal thoughts may help somewhat, as, clearly, sadness can feel very therapeutic. Crying helps. But, in the long run, I’ve learned it just makes you feel worse. And so I try not to do it anymore. You can say I’m mentally disordered, but I think I’m fine. I’m human. I get sad. I’ve been really sad in the past. But I’m good now. I’ve got stuff to do, things to keep me busy, goals to achieve. The past is gone. It went by like dusk to dawn.

Like I said, I have avoided writing about my past with depression for many reasons. But it feels good to write about it now. I desire introspection. And I desire to write about myself. I feel the reactions that I’m going to get. “Oh my God, are you ok?!” This is what I hate about writing. I want to write honestly, but I also want to be left alone. And I hate the fact that when I write, and share with an audience, they’re gonna tell me what they think. So many times, I don’t want to fucking hear it, for reasons that I just mentioned above.

I still have not truly figured out what I’m going to do with writing. Just recently, I was impressed with the number of articles that I currently have on my blog. It, at that current count, was 247. I was shocked at that number. Pleasantly surprised. I know that as I keep churning away, as I do here, that, eventually, I will have a massive amount of work done, and that makes me extremely happy. It encourages me to keep going. It is just a matter of getting (good) pieces done which poses the problem.

I wish that I could say, right now, exactly how I’m going to get to that point. Of course, I’ll have to read more. Practice writing more. But that feels so general to describe. This is going to take some intense, personal thought. This is going to take extreme confidence that I can write well. This is going to take a lot of isolation. A loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of isolation. I have always felt guilty for my desire to be left alone. Anxiety and guilt have motivated so much of my action in my life thus far that it feels weird to take any action that isn’t motivated by them. But my love for writing, and my desire to be the best at it motivate me to write. And I am extremely happy about that.

Sitting in silence, thinking of words, is going to be very hard for me. My brain has always been interrupted in the past. As I said, the more calm I feel, the more I feel like a slap in the face is about to occur. I think there is a large reason for this (multiple, obviously. I’ve discussed some of them above. But I think there’s more to it as well). I think my religious past has most to do with this feeling of getting slapped in the face when times are good.

Just yesterday, at the time of this writing, my best friend and I went out for pizza. Oh, did I feel good. I was calm, and at peace. We were on a particular stretch of road, with clouds covering the sky. An extreme feeling of deja vu overcame me. It was Sunday. And I was reminded of the past. That time when you felt free, away from church. Free from the prison. Except you were always guilty, even when freed. Regardless of your play, or whatever activity you were doing (in retrospect, I think this is why I didn’t read very much) you better be thinking about God. Are you playing in a Godly way? When you read that book, are you thinking about it Godly? Everything for me had to be through a “Christian” lens, and that’s most unfortunate. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface, but I feel it necessary to include in this piece, as it is a large reason why I have so much problem with “sitting in silence”. Fire is going to engulf my bed because I’m masturbating, and I’m never going to be more fearful than when I cum; lightning means that God is looking for me, and He’s going to take me if I don’t avoid the lightning. His lightning is saying “I see your sins. Watch out, boy. Do you see me?” Once again, I don’t want to say these things because I don’t want to hear your points of view about religion. This isn’t a debate. This is catharsis. My desire for peace was destroyed by religion, and tragedy was introduced into my life thanks to a negligent parent. Sadly, that sums me up quite a bit. Now, it isn’t completely fair. I’ve left out all of the parts that were actually good. But the bad still existed, and I felt like writing about them today.

I have been running away from my religious feelings for a long time. My best friend is inspiring me to delve into my past a little bit more than I otherwise would have. I become afraid when I go back and look at it. Not as afraid as I was back when I was actually experiencing it, but still afraid, nonetheless. There was absolutely no religious satisfaction back then. Everything was misery and terror. “And thank God for it!” The message was perverted; completely backwards. You should thank God for the peace, not the misery. When things are good, and you are happy, and genuinely thankful, that’s how you thank God. You don’t thank God by going up to the altar because you’re afraid of not thanking God. That isn’t very thankful. It’s like being a wife of an abusive husband. “Thank you, for not hitting me today, husband. I thank you for it.” What? That is what so much Christian theology teaches. If you don’t thank God, He’s going to slap you. Uh, thanks, I guess? If the only definition of love is conditional and based solely on a lack of violence when one is prone to it, then we’re missing out on peace and prosperity that love actually naturally promises us. Love is not merely “I’m not hitting you today.” Love is deeper than that. More meaningful. It is selfless, at times. It puts others before itself. It desires goodwill, and creates it. “It is patient. It is kind.” Any Christian teaching that doesn’t teach “God’s love” from this point of view is missing out on the entire point of the message. Missing out on the entirety of the “good news”, a.k.a., the “Gospel”.

It pains me to say that conservatism hindered my ability to read. It destroyed natural relationships with the opposite sex. It pretty much destroyed everything. I don’t harbor any ill-will towards any family member involved in introducing me to it. I empathize greatly with any individual desiring to get closer to God, so I don’t hate anyone who was trying to bring me closer to Him, even if it, effectively, ended up sending me in the opposite direction. But the old conservative message was deplorable at best; intolerable at worst. Sadly, so many know that religious fear all too well. I wish that I could explain it to you under the assumption that you have no idea what I’m talking about. But I know that many of you have those conservative scars from those deep psychological wounds. There, obviously, is a constant anxiety associated with religious conservatism. It is demanded by many pastors. Many pastors say that God demands this anxiety. So, of course, many, including myself, believed it. And, of course, being anxiety, it caused a host of various, intricate mental problems. Just sitting and reading a book has often proved too much for my anxiety. “I’m going to Hell; I just know it. What is the Godly way to do this thing that I want to do? What does God think about this book? Is it a sin if I read this book?” What I’m talking about is obvious, but the damage that causes does not seem to be talked about enough. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. But the ones writing about that damage seem to be too few in number. Perhaps that’s because there can never be enough people writing about the damages of religious conservatism. (It should be mentioned that, as I stated at the very beginning, I have a natural propensity towards anxiety. So my nature, combined with my raising, and my religious upbringing, make it crystal clear to me why I’m always so anxious).

I am very thankful that the past is gone. But is it ever truly really? The events of our past shape how we are today. We may forget about what caused us to be certain ways, or influenced us, but their influence remains, for better or worse. In this case, I’m obviously referring to the worst. I long for peace, and relaxation. Anxiety consumes me, and a large reason for that is conservative religion. I would not consider myself a conservative any longer, but when you have trained yourself to do something, a part of it remains inside of you. You develop habits; certain trains of thought. You do things without even realizing that you’re doing them. But I’m thankful I’m aware of this now. I don’t know how I’m going to move past this, and be able to relax, and write. For years, I believed my honest feelings didn’t matter. God’s way was important, and what I wanted didn’t matter if it didn’t match up to “God’s way”. So, desperate to live, I tried to find out what “God’s way” was. And boy, were there people willing to tell me.

But I have rarely felt alive. I have rarely felt like my life was my own. I have been on the roller-coaster of anxiety. I haven’t even been able to walk. I could see the good times below from my roller-coaster, and I smiled at those good times. Sometimes, I even magically left that roller-coaster, in ways that I truly don’t understand. But I still rode it. Rode it for God. Rode it for Heaven. Oh, the ups and downs of life. They toughen you up. Get you ready for Heaven. What a bunch of fucking bullshit.

Despite my overwhelming desires for comedy, which have helped me conquer the tragedy in my life, the anxiety is a much tougher one. The peace and quiet of reading and writing is very hard for me to experience. I have only just begun to realize what all of this truly is. I have ran away from this anxiety for so long, despite the fact that it has desperately clung to my brain, and hasn’t really let go. I pray that one day, I can read in write in complete peace, away from conservative anxiety. I don’t want that goddamned anxiety. I don’t want the fucking conservatism. It pains me that readers of this will defend it. I wish I could explain to them why they are so tragically wrong. But at the moment, I can’t. And that really hurts me. It hurts me conservative readers won’t understand what I’m saying, and will try to defend that goddamned pain and suffering. But there’s nothing I can really do about that at the moment, except live within my own peaceful world regarding the subject, hoping that the truth is revealed to others whom are blind from it currently. The desire to respond to opposition is strong, but sometimes, I wonder if it’s worth the mental effort, and if it would just be easier to let the critics be critics, ignore them, and let them judge me. Eventually, I think it will be.

At the moment, I know that peace will help me write better. It will help me read. It will help me become better with literature. And I don’t want to hurry it along. Hurriedness makes me anxious, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid. So that while, of course, I’m desperate to become as good of a writer as possible as soon as possible (and, now that I think of it, this explains why I do many of the things that I do, and why I’m in such a hurry to “succeed”), the key to good writing is good thoughts. And good thoughts take time, effort, and a fuckton of patience that I’m currently lacking. I desire to write, and I know that practice will help me sit in silence, and become a better writer. How I long for the day when I achieve a level of contentment in my own mind, in the deafening silence I know I need.

Let’s continue. I mentioned it briefly, but other people responding to what I say limits my desire to speak out. I speak out a lot. I’m very honest when I do so. But there are still times where I think “Is it really worth speaking out in this instance? What do I have to gain from this but a bunch of people responding?” That’s a big thing that I dread about writing. It’s not that I hate criticism (there’s such things as valid and invalid criticism). I just want to be left alone. I want to speak out, but at the same time, I want to be left alone. Read what I write, and leave me alone. I accept the fact that people will respond, give their insights, etc. I read what other people have to say. But it is very exhausting for me. Us introverts are weird; especially if we’re writers. We want to write for the world, but be left alone. Instead of trying to figure it out, like I’ve always tried to do, I think I’ll just accept it now, due to mental exhaustion (some things just aren’t worth continuing to think about any longer, thank God).

I suppose, in some ways, I speak to myself. I express myself regardless of who listens, or what they say. I can understand why people would find that odd. But at the same time, when you sit in silence for so long, absorbing the words of others, you start to make up your own mind, and naturally desire to express yourself. There is something about expressing yourself that just makes you feel good. That just makes you happy. Satisfied. It doesn’t matter who hates it, who ignores it, or even who is unaware of it. Sometimes, just expressing yourself is enough to make you happy. I find this to be the case almost constantly for me. Even though I am an introvert, I desire to express myself creatively. The most common way I desire to do this is through comedy. I don’t care if you find me humorous or not. I just desire to express what I find funny, and I desire to do this very often. And, so, I do do it very often. It makes me very happy. I’ve said this before, but I do this out of boredom. When I’m bored, I try to entertain myself. Because I’m always bored, I’m always trying to entertain myself. So I’m always telling jokes. I don’t care if you hate them, think they’re stupid, think their offensive, whatever. I don’t care what your negative opinion is of my jokes. Of course, I appreciate positive feedback. But the negative feedback isn’t going to change a thing about my comedy, and my desire to make myself laugh. It keeps me going from day to day. I think I live for it. I don’t know what I would do without it. It simply is just me. It is just simply me to try to make myself laugh all of the time. Nothing else makes me happy like making myself laugh does. So, of course, I’m going to do it as much as possible, regardless of how it annoys others, or whatever else it does to them. So why share it when people hate it? Catharsis. That’s the best answer. And self-entertainment. That’s what I care about.

One thing I’ll add is my personal financial philosophy regarding artistic expression. This desire to express myself, particularly comedically (but also through other forms as well) does not exist because I think it will make me money. It just exists. It just simply is that I desire to express myself. That I desire to make myself laugh, express what I think is funny, express articles such as this, express fiction, etc. Those just exist within me. Those are just how I am. Who I am, in fact. I do not do these things because I think they will make me money. However, if I’m going to do them without making any money, then why wouldn’t I operate under the assumption that I will make money someday? I literally have nothing to lose. In other words, if I am willing to write for free, why shouldn’t I charge for writing, even if I don’t make any money? Since I desire to write anyway, I have nothing to lose by charging for writing. In other words, I have nothing to lose by dreaming of becoming a professional writer. I’m not “wasting my time”. I’m not being “unproductive”. It wouldn’t “benefit me more to choose another line of work”. Because even though there is a monetary aspect to writing, it isn’t about the money. It’s deeper than that. It’s more than that. Despite the fact that I do desire to reach “professional” (a.k.a. “full-time” (a.k.a. “take extended vacations”)) status, that isn’t the only reason for writing. Hell, it isn’t even the main reason. I write simply because I want to. I just do. But I literally have nothing to lose by dreaming of achieving the most success possible. It makes me happy, gives me something to work for, motivates me. And I already love to write, so that might as well be my dream. Of course, I do have financial situations to deal with presently. I’m not stupid. I’m always aware of this fact, and I’ll act accordingly. But I might as well dream of being a rich, successful author. I don’t care what anyone else says about it, I don’t care how unlikely it is, how many people are like me and dream of it that never get there, none of that fucking matters. What matters is that I’m already doing it for free, I love it, I have nothing to lose, so I might as well try to become “professional” at it. I hate that so many people exist out there that will try to “convince me otherwise”, but I’ll have to deal with it. At least I’m finally able to express this, as I don’t feel like I have been able to prior to this point. I’m not going to care if I never succeed before I die. Obviously, there will be many factors that determine how happy I am financially, and that determine my financial status at any given time. I’m not stupid. I’m aware of this. But even if I never become a “professional” writer, and die without that ever happening, I still will have nothing to lose by writing, and only everything to gain. That’s what I want people to understand about my work, and my philosophy surrounding it.

For too long, I have been content. If I impressed someone, I was content with stopping there. But honestly, the writing has been very stale to me. Repetitive. I’m at the point where I just want to sit and think about what I’m writing. Now, it isn’t that I normally don’t think when I write. That would be impossible. But the key is ridding myself of this anxiety that I have discussed in this piece. I imagine that most writers are calm. When they write, they sit in peace and quiet. Nothing can disturb them from their work. And they create masterpieces. That’s what I really fucking want. Peace, and quiet. And masterpieces.

I have always taken the easy way out when it comes to writing. I hope there will be a giant shift in my writing life. I think I’ve written some smart things to this point. I’m not comparing myself to any great writers or anything (even though I believe I can be a very good writer at some point in the future). But I want my writing to be more intimate. Instead of only writing when something really bugs me, I want to write just for fun. Carefree. More relaxed. I still want to write when something bugs me, of course. But I don’t want the only time I write to be when this is the case. I want to do it more often. And I can’t do that if my brain is as disorganized as it has been. I’ve had to go through this introspection to figure out what was preventing me from doing this. And, as with most things I’ve written up to this point, I think I did a pretty good job with the introspection. It’s all going to come together. Everything I’ve written is going to come together to form a “life work”, and it will all make sense in the end. Its popularity will not determine its value. It makes me very happy. Each individual piece has meaning, and the thought of bringing them all together into one coherent “piece” or “body of work” makes me very happy indeed. Of course, I hope they are (and will be) entertaining and insightful. And, of course, I’d love to become rich through it. That dream will never die, for reasons that I’ve already stated. But the joy is what it is all about.

I really want to become a better writer. I’m going to do it my own way. No “school”. No doing it anyone else’s way but my own. Freedom is beautiful. There are problems in life that are beyond our control. Circumstances and realities that we must accept. But those instances where we are free: those are the good times. I want to grow through my writing. My career dreams. My work. My art. I want them all to grow and get better, in my own way, without “formal teaching”. I want to teach myself, through the words of others, introspection, and practice. And I want to do it at my own personal pace. So, I will. Writing, for me, is mainly about personal growth. Followed closely by money. Everything else is just an added benefit.

I need to become a bigger reader. The anxiety that I have discussed ad nauseum up to this point has been a large reason why I haven’t been a “big reader”. I enjoyed reading when I was a child. I’ve written about my own feelings about reading before. But there is a certain mindset that you have to have to be a reader. It’s a mindset that I’ve rarely had. It’s a mindset that I’ve already discussed: one of relaxation. I just have never been able to relax. For multiple reasons I’ve already discussed. But you truly have to be relaxed and calm to read a book. Well, if you want to read a book effectively. As a writer, I feel like I have a new appreciation for reading. My appreciation for other writers is growing as I write. “Hey, I like this. Aren’t there a bunch of other people out there that do this as well? Oh yeah, they write books. Those things I’m not reading.” The anxiety has a large part to do with it. Thankfully, I have been in the process of developing new personal and religious philosophies that help me relax. It’s very hard to do. It is very hard work to relax. It takes a lot of effort for me to relax. I just need a good philosophical framework (which I’m working on developing), and practice. I’m confident that I’ll get there at some point, even though, as I say that, I imagine getting shot in my 30s. This is what I’m talking about. It may ultimately be a losing battle, but I need to try to fight it regardless. I just hope it doesn’t turn out to make my writing more optimistic…

I need to practice relaxation. I need this for multiple reasons. Mental health. Becoming a better reader and writer. Just being happier. But there’s another thing that I want to touch on, even though I feel like it is a losing battle. As I sit, thinking about other authors to read, I think about ideological conflicts. “Right and wrong” again. Not only from an ethical standpoint this time, but from an objective standpoint. It gives me a headache. Sadly, there exist unethical people who are willing to compulsively lie for their own gain. And these people write books. Books on political and economic theory. These people run for office. Work in the media. Fighting against them feels futile, when there’s so few “libertarians” that exist (or, at least, that it feels that way). Fighting an uphill battle against evil is always hard. The only reason it isn’t pointless is because it is evil you’re fighting. It’s worth it, but it exhausts you. And it isn’t even guaranteed that you’re going to win.

Lamentation is a common theme in my life. Even though I don’t read very often, I wish others would. There’s a deep compassion that most of us share to make the world a better place, even if this means “polarization”. It’s very complicated. Who is right, and who is wrong? Why is this popular, and why isn’t this? I’m learning that instead of trying to “save the world”, the best you can hope for is personal contentment. I just learn for myself, write things like this from time to time, and then…that’s all I can really do. I’m only a man. I can’t ask “WWJD” as some sort of blueprint for what sort of action I should take. Age is a great guide.

I want to go on a quick tangent for a second. I’ve written about offensiveness before, but considering my love for it, I know I will have to continue writing about it in the future. I’m not completely satisfied with my original “Offend the Fuck Out of People” piece. There’s something missing, but I’m not quite sure what it is yet. Perhaps my mental skills weren’t as developed as I feel they are now (which should really indicate the poor status of my communication skills when I initially wrote it). At any rate, my offensiveness has been my way of teaching myself that things are ok. That things aren’t as bad as I may believe them to be. This stuff? This is bad: not that stuff that I used to think was bad. The “immature”, “vulgar” abrasiveness has been my way of growing up. I know I’ll be critiqued for that, but that’s how it has been. I don’t ever want that to change, but I reserve the right to do so in the future if I desire so then. There is an overreaction to portrayals of offensive things in art. Thankfully, this appears to have died down throughout the years. But has it really? Has anything really changed? Romeo and Juliet committed suicide together. That was written in 1595 (thanks, Google). But even still, there are people today that think that certain things just “shouldn’t be expressed in art”. This typically seems to happen when the medium changes, such as with video games. But I enjoy taking this hypersensitivity and offending the fuck out of it. It is important that a culture does not become antagonistic to freedom. Constantly pushing freedom to the maximum point is, my opinion, one of the best ways to keep tyranny from gaining ground. I think, deep down, that’s what motivates me the most about “offensiveness”.

Most of this has been about writing (fiction and non-fiction), but I want to address comedy for a second, because it relates. I just have a funny way of looking at the world. I crave comedy. I crave making myself laugh. I just get fucking bored easily. Always have. Comedy has been the primary way I have alleviated this boredom. No matter how much comedy I consume from others, there is always a void. It’s never enough. Or never good enough, in my opinion. Doesn’t make me laugh hard enough. So, I have to roll my sleeves up and do it myself. I don’t mind it. I love it, of course. But this means that I spend all day every day entertaining myself. Simply out of boredom. And, once again, as with the writing, why wouldn’t I “sell” my comedy? I have nothing to lose by attempting to do so, because I will do the comedy anyway. I already am. I hate that I have to spell this out for people, but I hate getting asked the question “Why do you do this when your chances of being successful are infinitesimal?” (I have one particular gentleman in mind when I write this word. He was quite fond of it. He was fond of expressing his intelligence with certain vocabulary words that he clung to. Even if he pronounced it wrong, like “infinitisimal”. But he was actually smart). It’s called “passion”. It’s called “purpose”. It makes me feel alive. Satisfies me. Drives me. That’s why I write and tell jokes and share them when no one else is listening. It’s just who I am. “So you’re that insane person that talks to himself and has delusions of grandeur?” Sure, if you want to put it that way. That’s who I am.

I don’t care if you don’t like it. In fact, that kind of feeds me to keep going. Reinforces to me that I’m not doing it just for money. I’m doing it for me. Because it makes me happy. So hatred of my work just makes me want to work all the more. Gives me all the more reason to do it. In fact, I feel like if I started making money, that I’d do less of it. But that’s easy to say when the money isn’t rolling in. I’m sure that I’d keep the moneyball rolling, but I don’t think I would sellout all of my personal convictions.

Of course, I have to prove myself. I have to prove that I can write. Create engaging stories. Tell good jokes. That’s where all of the work comes in. And the practice. Getting better. The passion. I don’t think this drive is going away any time soon. My love for comedy isn’t going away. My love for writing isn’t going away. So I’m not going away. My dream is not going away. I’m here to stay, whether I succeed within the next year, twenty years, or never.

The keys are patience and practice. Thankfully, I’m good at introspection. Then, it takes judicious practice to go from observations to change. That’s what I’m attempting to do. I’m confident that, in the end, I will have a body of work that speaks for itself, even though I will have been the one that has spoken through it.

One of these days, I’ll be “good”.

Let’s end on this note: I want to address “praise” for a second. I’ve written about this several times, but I want to add something about it here. Despite my desire for fame as a writer as a means to achieve financial security and happiness, there’s a part of me that desires privacy. Once again, as an introvert (albeit a particularly expressive one), I desire to be by myself. But at the same time, I desire fame. I desire fame solely as a means towards financial ends. And the desire for financial ends are easy to understand. Once again, why wouldn’t I choose another line of work to obtain financial ends? I’ve already discussed it in this piece. In a sense, I’m going after what I don’t desire. I desire fame, but I hate the thought of having it. It is quite confusing. But, in another way, don’t those that have already obtained wealth desire peace and quiet? Aren’t there “famous” people that avoid the limelight as much as possible? Don’t they enjoy their wealth, even though they aren’t constantly being hounded by the press?